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Sunday, 23 September 2012

The learning continues...

As I face another madly busy week (even busier than usual in fact, due to some evening commitments of various sorts!) I'm so appreciating the chance to look around me, to observe, to reflect, to think, and to learn :) While I'm only including one 'lesson' each day in my art journal, my cute little notebook is filling up with all kinds of observations, from the daft and trivial to the meaningful and challenging - and I love that!

16th September: I followed Abi's tutorial and made myself a lovely map, which is on proud display in my living room :) I didn't add the stitching, just to make things simpler for myself, but I love how that looks on Abi's original! Here's mine:

(Not shown: after taking this pic, I also added the suggested punched paper heart to mark our location.)

17th September: I was reminded, though thankfully not by finding myself in this situation, that sometimes you can feel at your loneliest when you're part of a crowd. Have you ever felt that? I know I have, and I was thankful that I wasn't experiencing it - or indeed, watching anyone else experience it - at that time.

18th September: Sometimes you have the kind of day where you have to keep reminding yourself to keep smiling! (Gosh, I only just realised how different the lighting is in these two pics...)

19th September: My first papercrafts class of the new academic year, and (for various reasons) numbers are down a bit. There are many advantages to this though, and I chose to focus on those rather than feeling rejected and unloved! ;) (The two little characters illustrating these pages are left over decoupage designs, by the way - Professor Yaffle from Bagpuss, and Boofle the dog.)

20th September: I learnt that I like to be Little Miss Helpful. And I had a whole morning of being so!

21st September: Oh, isn't it just so true that it's impossible to stick to the shopping list when you go to Ikea?! The left hand page shows my actual list - four items, one of which was for a friend, and one was to have a free coffee in the restaurant, so I guess that's two items really! The right hand page lists what I actually bought.... And I didn't even find what my friend wanted, or manage to get one of the items for me as it had been discontinued!! (If you click on the right hand page to enlarge it you may also notice that I've felt the need to justify each purchase lol!)

22nd September: Time to get out a few neglected craft supplies! I'd never even used the Crackle Glaze from PaperArtsy, despite having received it some time ago and putting it on my 'to try' list! The first attempt didn't quite work out, but the second was much better :) I used the technique to decorate a couple of glass slide holders:

The right hand page shows an experiment with alcohol ink; you stamp a design on the front of the slide (or in this case, acetate), apply the inks to the back, and then remove some of the ink with blending solution. It went a bit skewiff on the acetate, but the slides themselves turned out better!

23rd September: Bleh, full of cold :( I became aware of how I can become very focussed on myself when I'm not feeling well - being constantly distracted by my symptoms can mean that I'm very much pointed inwards. The spiral and journaling go from the outside to the centre to emphasise this, and the arrows too, of course. The stickers came with a calendar and they just seemed to fit how I was feeling, somehow! The right hand page tells the story of how I want to try to focus outwards a bit more, and not get too caught up in self-pity, even when I'm feeling under the weather.

One more week of September! I wonder what learning this week will bring? :)

17 comments:

Gosh, you've had quite a week last week, let alone the one to come, Mel! I've enjoyed all your various forms of journalling/recording your thoughts and insights - and your map is a stunning piece of wall art. :)

Oh Mel, those pages are very cool. I love the slides with the crackle glaze. What a lot of lovely learning you are doing - and have on record to look at for the future. My cold has now sunk to my chest and now I bark instead of cough and I have no voice (hence long verbiage in comments as I have to 'talk' somehow!). Hope we both get better soon!

I really like your pages Mel- especially the spirals. Oh and I LOVE your map! that turned out so well! Thank you for following the tutorial. Yours is better than mine- slight map envy over here! ha ha! xx

Hi Mel, what a fantastic journal!Thanks for being a part of Blogtoberfest, hosted by Cathy aka {tinniegirl} last year. Thought you might be interested to know that we're running it again in 2012. You can find all the info at: http://isawyoudancing.blogspot.com.au/p/blogtoberfest-2012.htmlAnd we're kicking off this Monday! Would love to see you there. Your dear friend Monica aka The Creative Beast will be providing a guest post, which we all know is going to be fantastic.Kat xxx

I'm catching up a little today with blog reading, and really enjoyed your lessons! Your art journal pages & journaling are coming along so well - great job keeping up. My favorite lesson is the one from Ikea - of course you can't just buy a few things there!! :>)

...is what I speak. It describes what I actually say (nonsense, mostly) and how I say it (ie my accent, which is a mixture of all sorts - a bit of North of England, a bit of Irish, a bit of South West England, a lot of just me!) The word comes from my name, Mel, and the fact that I'm one-quarter Welsh. But there's not actually any Welsh in my accent. Go figure...